Long, Cold Road
by Sara Wolfe
Summary: They've got a long way to go...Final Chapter
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: **_Power_ pissed me off. This was supposed to be just venting, but then the darn thing had to go and develop a plot.

**Long, Cold Road**

"Lana, you're not a distraction. You never were."

Even as the words left his mouth, Clark could hear the hollow ring to them. What was he doing? He and Lana were over. Faked DVD or no, there was just too much else between them that would never work. Had never worked if he was being completely honest with himself.

_'Yeah, that'll be a first,' _a nagging little voice in the back of his head spoke up. Funny how his conscience sounded so much like Lois.

"I just don't want to see you get hurt," Clark continued, and Lana smiled at him.

"Clark, nothing can hurt me," Lana insisted. "You and I are equals, now."

There was something that rang wrong with that statement, but the more Clark tried to think about it, the harder it was to focus on anything but Lana standing in front of him.

"Together, we can help make the world a better place," Lana continued, forcefully. "We were always wonderful together, now we can be even better. You'll see; you just have to trust me."

Clark shook his head, trying to clear away the cobwebs that clouded his thoughts. This wasn't right. He shouldn't be up on the roof; not with Lana. They were over and there was someone else –

The feel of Lana's fingers lightly framing his face jolted him out of his thoughts, and he looked down as she gave him a tremulous smile and went up on her toes to lean in for a kiss. Clark hesitated, unwilling to close the distance between them as the little voice in the back of his head screamed at him not to be an idiot.

The reality of him and Lana had never been as good as the fantasy. He'd been chasing after an empty dream for years and he knew it. So, why was he trying to recapture what they'd never really had?

_'Because it's Lana, and this is what you've always wanted,'_ came the immediate answer, and even as his conscience gave up in disgust, Clark leaned down and kissed Lana, wrapping his arms around her waist.

**XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX**

"Hello?" Lois jerked out of her fitful sleep as her cell phone shrilled, impatiently, the greeting coming out of her mouth on autopilot.

"Hey, Lois, how's Jimmy?" Lois winced at the overly-cheerful tone in her cousin's voice and stifled a yawn behind her hand.

"Chloe, it's three in the morning," Lois informed her, grumpily, after she'd snagged her watch off the table beside Jimmy's hospital bed.

"Oh, sorry," Chloe said, even though she sounded too hyper to be at all apologetic. "I guess I didn't realize how early it is. I just wanted to see how Jimmy's doing."

"Jimmy's sleeping," Lois said, pointedly, hoping Chloe would take the hint. When her words didn't seem to have an effect, she added, "So was I, actually."

"I guess you want to go, then," Chloe said, a little sheepishly, and Lois sighed in relief.

"Yeah," she answered, not even bothering to hide her yawn this time. "I kinda do. I want to get back to sleep."

"Oh, hey!" Chloe exclaimed, before Lois could click off her phone. "I didn't tell you the good news."

"What good news?" Lois asked. "Are you and Ollie coming back to Star City?"

She hadn't been surprised at Oliver's announcement that he was headed back to Metropolis; between Queen Industries and his Green Arrow duties, he was never still. But a similar announcement from Chloe had completely floored her, especially since her cousin hadn't been able to offer a good explanation as to why she was leaving. Lois couldn't understand how Chloe could just walk away from Jimmy like she had; she knew if someone she loved was in the hospital, no force on Earth could drag her away. Even now, she couldn't bring herself to leave Jimmy's side.

"No, we've both got some stuff to take care of here at home," Chloe said, casually, breaking into Lois's thoughts. "This is something better."

"Better than you guys coming back?" Lois asked, squelching the disappointment she felt at Chloe's words.

"This is great," Chloe confided, and despite herself, Lois couldn't help but get caught up in her obvious excitement.

"So?" Lois pressed, insistently. "You woke me up this early; you can't keep me in suspense forever."

"Clark and Lana are back together," Chloe gushed.

For Lois, it was like getting cold water dashed in her face. She blinked in stunned amazement, fairly certain from the look on her face that she was doing a credible impression of a goldfish.

"What?" she finally managed to choke out.

After the wedding reception, and that little scene in the hospital, she'd been half-expecting something like this, but she couldn't believe just how much it hurt to have her suspicions confirmed.

"Yeah," Chloe went on, oblivious to Lois's shock. "I convinced Clark to give Lana a second chance."

Chloe's words were like a knife to her heart.

"You told Clark that he should get back together with Lana?" Lois echoed, weakly.

"Well, I could tell that he was considering it," Chloe prattled on. "I just gave him a nudge in the right direction."

"Right direction," Lois repeated, surprising even herself with the bitterness in her voice. "What about Lana stomping all over his heart?"

"Oh, that was just a big misunderstanding," Chloe said, dismissively. "No, they worked all of that out."

"Oh," Lois said, softly, not knowing how else to respond. If Clark didn't seem to care that Lana had walked all over him, why should her opinion on it be important?

"And you're probably breathing a big sigh of relief," Chloe said, in a knowing tone, startling Lois.

"Why would I be relieved?" she asked, confused.

"Oh, come on," Chloe scoffed, lightly. "All that stuff about you falling for Clark, that was just talk, right?"

"Right," Lois echoed, feeling the knife in her heart give a vicious twist.

"I mean, you and Clark?" Chloe went on. "Talk about tossing oil on a fire." A teasing note in her voice, she added, "You should have seen the look on Clark's face when I told him."

"You told Clark?" Lois asked, feeling slightly numb to this newest shock. "What-"

Her voice choked up, and she closed her eyes as she took a deep breath to try and compose herself.

"What did he say?" she asked, hating the plaintive note she couldn't quite manage to get out of her voice.

"He looked like someone just smacked him," Chloe told her. "The idea is crazy, when you think about it."

"Yeah." Lois managed a weak laugh despite feeling like her heart was being ripped in two. "Completely crazy. I don't know what I was thinking."

_'And if I say it enough times, I might even convince myself of that fact,'_ Lois thought, bitterly.

Chloe was still going on about something, probably more about the happy couple, and Lois couldn't take anymore.

"Chloe," she said, abruptly, cutting her cousin off mid-sentence, "I've got to go. I'm really tired, and I need to get some sleep."

"Sure, okay," Chloe agreed, blissfully unaware that she'd just shattered Lois's heart. "I'll talk to you later. Give Jimmy my love when he wakes up."

_'You should be here to tell him, yourself,'_ Lois wanted to snap, but Chloe had already hung up the phone.

Feeling suddenly very numb, Lois snapped her own phone shut, and then gave into the sudden fit of anger and hurled it against the wall. Her phone broke into several pieces upon impact, and Lois felt a quick surge of satisfaction that was tempered when she realized just how much it was going to cost to replace the phone.

Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes, but she blinked them back with an effort. She was not going to waste any time crying over Clark Jerome Kent. If he didn't want her, then, damn it, she didn't want him, either.

Yeah, that didn't help.

"I can't even lie to myself," Lois said, ruefully, her voice filling the small room.

At the sound, Jimmy stirred, restlessly, and Lois caught his hand as it strayed toward the tube in his throat.

"You are not allowed to pull on that," Lois told him, firmly, even though she knew that Jimmy was still more than half out of it and couldn't understand a word she was saying.

Jimmy quieted down at the sound of her voice, slipping back into sleep, and Lois sighed as she tucked his hand back under the sheets.

"At least you seem happy to have me here," she said, quietly.

**XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX  
**

_"Guess I can give these well-heeled puppies a rest."_

_Lois started to walk past Clark as a slow song started playing, but he caught her hand and stopped her from leaving, giving her a small, shy smile when she looked back at him curiously. Clark tipped his head toward the dance floor and Lois relented after a few seconds, allowing him to pull her out on the dance floor. _

_They started dancing with nearly a foot between them, but soon Clark pulled Lois close enough that his breath tickled her cheek. Lois shifted in his arms, seemingly unwilling to look anywhere but at his face. Clark angled his head down, trying to catch her eye, but she seemed to be deliberately avoiding his gaze. _

_Then, another one of the wedding guests bumped into Lois, sending her stumbling into Clark's embrace. He tightened his arms around her waist, keeping her on her feet, and he could see her swallow, nervously, as she finally looked up at him. To his surprise, the same heart-pounding fear that he was feeling was reflected in her eyes. _

_Lois stepped closer to Clark, placing a hand on his chest and a jolt of electricity ran through his body. Clark tightened his arms around her waist, pulling her even closer, and he bent his head down to hers. Lois tipped her head back, and Clark leaned down close, his lips almost brushing hers…_

"Lois," Clark whispered, and then the tranquility of his dream was shattered by the shrill scream of the smoke alarm.

Still half asleep, Clark bolted out of his bed and out into the kitchen, which was filled with thick gray smoke. Clark zeroed in on the stove and grabbed the burning skillet off of the burner, dumping it in the sink and turning the cold water on full force. The steam that hissed loudly off the skillet only added to the smoke in the kitchen, and Clark sucked the smoke into his lungs, opening the window and blowing it out into the back yard.

He turned around with a wide smile, but it quickly fell off his face when he didn't find Lois like his sleep-addled brain was expecting. Instead, Lana stood in the middle of the kitchen, a sheepish look on her face and a spatula in one hand.

"I was trying not to wake you," she apologized, as Clark tried to wrap his brain around just what was going on.

Memories from the previous night came flooding back, and Clark remembered kissing Lana on the roof of the Daily Planet. Remembered inviting her back to the farm to sleep in the guest room when she told him she couldn't keep imposing on Chloe. Remembered sitting in front of the fireplace until early in the morning, talking until they both retired to their respective rooms.

He wondered just what the hell he'd been thinking.

"You looked so tired, I just wanted to let you sleep," Lana told him, while he stood there in shock. "I wanted to cook you breakfast, but I guess I turned the oven on too high."

"Lana," Clark started, but she talked right over him.

"Some of it might still be salvageable. I don't know what came over me; I'm usually a much better cook than this-"

"Lana, this was a mistake," Clark said, quickly, before he could lose his nerve.

"What, breakfast?" Lana asked, with a giggle. "It's not a pretty sight, I know, but-"

"This was all a mistake," Clark told her, firmly, not willing to let her distract him. "I think you should move to a hotel for the rest of your time in Metropolis."

Now it was Lana's turn to stare at him in shock.

"Where is this coming from, Clark?" she asked, confused. "What about last night?"

"Last night was a mistake," Clark stated, firmly.

He may not have remembered why last night happened the way it had, but he knew for sure it wasn't going to happen again.

"Clark," Lana repeated, crossing the kitchen to stand in front of him. "Clark, I don't understand."

"I don't really understand, myself," Clark admitted. "I just know that we never should have gotten back together. Even for a night."

"But – but you love me!" Lana protested, staring up at him with eyes that were suddenly filled with tears.

Looking down at her, Clark could literally feel his resolve weakening. He had loved Lana, once upon a time; would it really be so hard to fall in love with her, again?

His question went unanswered, though, when a distant explosion rocked the air and the ground suddenly shook, throwing both him and Lana to the ground. Clark scrambled back to his feet, riding out the shockwaves of a second explosion, and then sprinted out the door, speeding down the road to Metropolis, where the explosions had to have come from.

He reached the Daily Planet, and found the place in total chaos. People were pouring out of the doors leading out onto the street, screaming and panicking. Clark snagged the arm of the first passing person he could reach, and found himself looking at a frazzled, slightly frantic Ron Troupe.

"What happened?" he demanded, of the other reporter. "Who's been hurt?"

If Troupe thought his questions were strange he didn't question it, Instead, he just pointed up at the globe.

"Top floor," he gasped, his voice rasping painfully. "Your buddy Queen was meeting with a bunch of shareholders."

Clark nodded, shoving Troupe in the direction of a newly-arrived ambulance, and then sprinted into the building and up the stairs, arriving at the top floor in seconds. He ripped the already destroyed door the rest of the way off the hinges and stepped into the smoke-filled room.

Ten people were sprawled around the room, having been blown to different parts of the room by the explosions. Clark focused, and picking up on a faint heartbeat, zeroed in on the unconscious figure half-buried beneath the heavy oak table. Lifting the table off, Clark drew in a sharp breath as he saw Oliver lying on the floor, covered in blood and burns.

Clark eased Oliver into his arms, zipping down the stairs past a team of firefighters rushing up into the room. Back in the street, he carried Oliver over to a nearby ambulance, easing him onto a stretcher to the surprise of the medical techs in the ambulance.

"He was upstairs," Clark told them, as they moved immediately to help Oliver.

"Was there anyone else up there who'll be coming down?" one of the techs asked, while his partner hooked Oliver up to an oxygen mask.

Clark shook his head, regretfully, thinking of the lack of heartbeats he'd heard from the other occupants of the room.

The tech nodded in understanding. "We'll take care of him," he said, gesturing to Oliver. "You may have saved his life, getting him down here as fast as you did."

Clark just shook his head, again. "I didn't do enough," he told the confused tech.

Walking away from the ambulance, Clark could see Lana standing at the edge of the crowd, but he ignored her. He needed to figure out who had tried to kill Oliver and the Daily Planet's shareholders, and he couldn't do it if Lana was constantly nearby. Not when he still couldn't sort out his feelings for her. But first, he had a phone call to make.

Pulling his cell phone out of his pocket, Clark dialed Lois's number, anxiously waiting for her to pick up. But, instead of the reassuring rings he was expecting, a cool, mechanical voice came over the line.

"The cellular customer you are trying to reach is out of service…"


	2. Chapter 2

"All right, Mr. Olsen, are you ready?"

The therapist gave Jimmy an encouraging grin and he nodded, determinedly. Change of shift at the hospital had brought with it the best news that Lois had heard all week – Jimmy's lungs were strong enough for him to breathe on his own. They were finally going to take the tube out of his throat.

"What I want you to do is take a deep breath," the therapist was saying, and Lois tuned into the woman's speech so that she would understand what was going to happen. "And once you've got that breath in, I'm going to pull this tube out, okay?"

Jimmy nodded, and then flexed the hand that Lois was gripping. Sheepishly, she let go, and he shook the feeling back into his fingers. Resisting the urge to grab for his hand again, Lois gripped the bed rail, anxiously. She knew the chances of Jimmy getting hurt while being extubated was slim, but after everything he'd already been through, she didn't want to see him in any more pain.

At the therapist's signal, Jimmy took a deep breath, and before he could let it out, the woman reached over and gently pulled the long tube out of his throat. Jimmy gagged as soon as it was out, coughing and spitting into the small basin he was holding.

"This is a completely normal reaction," the therapist said, reassuringly, as Lois glared at her. "Mr. Olsen, I'd like you to talk for me if you can. How do you feel?"

"My throat hurts," Jimmy rasped, looking as if every word pained him.

"I can get you something for that," the therapist told him.

She left the room, presumably going after some pain pills for Jimmy, and the young man sat back against the pillows with a gentle sigh.

"It feels good to have that thing gone," he said, with a tired smile.

"Let me tell you, it's great to hear your voice," Lois told him.

"At least you're here to hear it," Jimmy muttered, subsiding quickly when Lois winced.

"I'm sure Chloe's got a good reason," she said, lamely.

She knew it wasn't anything close to being an adequate explanation, but Jimmy just sighed, and it broke Lois's heart that he'd be willing to accept it so easily.

_'Chloe, you better have a damn good reason for hurting him like this,'_ she thought, fiercely.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of footsteps in the doorway, and they both looked over to see Dr. Harper, Jimmy's doctor, coming into the room.

"I've got some good news for you, Mr. Olsen," he began, without preamble. "You're getting out of here."

"He's being discharged, already?" Lois asked, incredulously.

"Not discharged," Dr. Harper corrected. "Transferred back to Metropolis General."

"When?" Jimmy wanted to know.

"Later this afternoon," Dr. Harper told him.

"How?" Lois asked, curiously. "Jimmy was MediVacced here; is he going the same way back?"

"Unfortunately, no," Dr. Harper replied. "Arrangements are being made for an ambulance-"

"Halfway across the country?" Lois asked, shaking her head in disbelief. "What about a plane?"

"Private medical insurance barely covers medical transport," Dr. Harper said.

"So, I'll pay for his ticket," Lois said, and Jimmy immediately shook his head.

"I can't let you do that!" he insisted.

"I'm not going to let you make the trip from Star City to Metropolis by ambulance," Lois told him, her tone indicating that was the end of the discussion. Jimmy sighed, admitting defeat, and Lois grinned in triumph.

"I'm paying you back," Jimmy threatened, and Lois glared at him.

"Not a chance," she snapped, and Dr. Harper took that as his cue to leave.

"I want to pay you back for this," Jimmy said, stubbornly, and Lois shook her head.

"No," she stated, flatly. Grabbing the bedside phone, she added, "Now be quiet. I've got to call the airport and get us some tickets home."

"Speaking of phone calls," Jimmy said, "have you talked to a certain tall, dark, reporter, lately?"

"Jimmy," Lois said, with a tired sigh. "Don't go there."

"What?" Jimmy asked. "Don't think I didn't see you two making googly eyes at each other during the entire wedding. And that dance-"

He let out a low whistle, but Lois just shook her head.

"Whatever was there between me and Clark that night," she told him, "it's long gone now."

"Just because you're in Star City and he's in Metropolis-" Jimmy protested.

"Clark and Lana are playing out Act Nine Hundred and Fifty-seven of their endless tragic love story," Lois said, not bothering to hold back the bitterness in her voice.

Jimmy winced in sympathy. "Shakespeare could learn a thing or two from them," he joked, weakly, and Lois nodded, giving him a slightly-watery smile.

"Right," she said, when the silence in the room stretched out, awkwardly. "Two plane tickets home, coming right up."

"Lois," Jimmy ventured, when Lois had started dialing the phone. "Clark may be acting like a royal jerk right now-" Lois snorted in disbelief and rolled her eyes, "but I've seen the way he looks at you. The guy's mad about you."

"I wish I could believe that," Lois said, softly.

"Trust me on this one," Jimmy said, assuredly.

**XXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX**

Clark stepped out of Oliver's hospital room, closing the door behind him with a tired sigh. He wanted to stay, but Oliver was finally getting some much-needed sleep, and there was nothing else that Clark could do for him.

Heading down the hall, he passed the small waiting room off of the Emergency Department, and then backtracked when he saw a familiar figure hunched over in one of the chairs.

"Cat?" he asked, quietly, going over to where the young woman was sitting, her face buried in her hands. "Cat, what's wrong?"

Cat Grant, the Daily Planet's newest society columnist, looked up at him, and Clark was taken aback by the tears that streaked down her face.

"It's Adam," she said, her voice breaking, and that was all Clark needed.

Sinking down into the seat next to her, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders, letting her lean on him. Letting out a small, choked sob, Cat buried her face in his chest, her shoulders shaking as she cried. He rubbed her back, gently, but didn't say anything. There wasn't really anything he could say that would erase what had happened to Cat's little boy; and he couldn't bring himself to say anything falsely reassuring when he felt like he should have been able to prevent the whole thing.

When Cat finally pulled away from him, she wiped her face with the tissue Clark had given her and stared down at the floor.

"My usual babysitter had to call in sick," she said. "Adam's got a cold; she probably caught it from him. I brought him to work with me, had him in the day care center on the fifth floor. I wasn't even planning on working a full day; I just wanted to put a few hours in."

"The fifth floor," Clark echoed. "I thought the bombs were up on the top floor, with Oliver and the shareholders."

Cat just shook her head, helplessly, and Clark felt like a jerk for even bringing it up. He and Cat sat in silence for a couple of minutes, before Cat reached over and squeezed his hand, gently.

"Thank you," she said, quietly, and Clark's guilt intensified.

"I didn't do anything," he protested.

"You were here," Cat told him. Rising from her seat, she added, "I'm going to go pester Adam's doctor until she tells me what I want to hear."

Clark nodded, getting to his feet. "I'm going to go talk to the police," he told her. "Maybe they've got a lead on the psycho who did this."

"I hope so," Cat said, with grim determination. "When they catch that son of a bitch, I want a few words with him."

She strode out of the waiting room, tear tracks the only sign of her previous breakdown, and Clark followed her lead, going the opposite way down the hallway. He found a group of tired detectives mingling with some even more tired Daily Planet employees in a larger waiting room two floors down, and he waved off the offer of a cup of coffee from Ron Troupe as he zeroed in on John Jones.

The older man was standing near the only window in the room, staring pensively out at the cold rain that had started to fall over the city. He looked up when Clark approached, and nodded a greeting.

"How's Oliver?" he asked, quietly.

"Stable," Clark replied. "He got behind a table when the bombs went off; the doctors say that's what protected him from most of the blast. He's asleep right now, and the doctors say that he's going to make a full recovery."

"That's good to hear," John said.

"Any leads?" Clark asked, nodding toward the Daily Planet in the distance.

"Do you know how many criminals, psychopaths, murderers, and diabolical geniuses have been written about by the Daily Planet in just the last five years?" John asked, skeptically.

"No suspects, then," Clark said, suddenly feeling very tired.

John shook his head. "There were five explosive devices placed in various locations in the Daily Planet," he told him. "Two were located in the conference room where Oliver was meeting with the Planet's shareholders."

"How many devices were on the fifth floor?" Clark asked, quietly.

"One," John told him. "How did you know-"

"Cat Grant's son was in the day care center when it exploded," Clark told him, angrily. "He's in surgery right now. He's only eight years old."

"You could not have stopped this," John said, sternly, knowing what Clark was getting at.

"Why the hell not?" Clark demanded, barely remembering to keep his voice down in time before anyone heard him. "I've got all these abilities, but what good am I if I can't keep people from being hurt?"

John fixed him with a hard look. "You are not omniscient. You are certainly not all-powerful, for all your powers. You cannot save everyone, no matter how hard you try. Now, are you going to sit and pity yourself, or are you going to do something to find and stop this madman before he strikes again?"

Clark glared at John for a moment before he relented with a sigh. "You're very good at that," he said, wryly. "Smacking sense into me, I mean."

"I imagine your mouthy cohort would do no less," John told him, and Clark smiled slightly at the reminder of Lois.

"I can start checking the Planet's archives," Clark volunteered, after a minute. When John looked at him, he added, "You're right about how many people who could be gunning for the Planet. I'm the best person to look through the archives, since I can speed-read through them."

"You have my phone number to call me when you find anything?" John asked, and Clark nodded.

"Good luck," Clark told him. "You'll call me if you find this guy?"

"I want your word you will let me and my fellow police officers deal with him," John said, firmly, and Clark sighed, again.

"You have it," he promised.

"I'll call you, then," John told him, and then he and the other cops filed out of the waiting room.

Clark pulled his cell phone out, wanting to try calling Lois again before he left for the Planet, but then he looked up at the sound of footsteps, and Nate Hanson of the Star froze in the doorway as every eye in the room fell on him.

"What do you want, Hanson?" Troupe demanded, and the other man raised a pad of paper, hesitantly.

"We're running a mid-day edition," he announced. "Someone's got to write about the Daily Planet's destruction, since you people obviously can't-"

He trailed off when the people in the room glared at him, some muttering insults under their breath.

"I just meant-" Hanson protested, but he was being systematically ignored by the same Planet staffers he'd come to interview. Taking pity on the guy, Clark walked over to where he was still hovering in the doorway.

"What you need to remember is that most everyone here is used to reporting the news, not being the news," he offered, and Hanson nodded, stiffly.

"Maybe I went about this the wrong way," he admitted, grudgingly. "How about it, Kent? You want to give me a sound bite?"

"How about the story?" Clark asked, instead, and Hanson looked at him incredulously.

"You want me to let you write this story?" he asked. "Do you know what kind of story this is?"

"It's the story of how some lunatic set off a series of bombs in my workplace. It's the story of twenty-two people who were killed in the explosions. It's the story of a little boy who's in surgery right now because that same lunatic planted one of the bombs in the Planet's day care center. But it's not your story, and I'm not going to let you advance your career on it."

A smattering of applause greeted the end of Clark's speech, and he looked up to see his fellow reporters surrounding him and Hanson.

"This is our story," Troupe said, into the silence that followed. "Are you going to let us write it?"

Hanson glared at the group surrounding him, but he gave up quickly, sensing that he was defeated.

"Fine," he grumbled, tossing his notepad down on the table. "I'll even clear it with my editor for you."

"Always knew you were a good man, Hanson," Steve Lombard spoke up. "Thanks for this, we won't forget it."

"So, where do we start?" Clark asked.

He and the other reporters crowded around the table to begin cobbling together their article.

"We start with what we know," Troupe said. "How many bombs did your cop friend say they found?"

"Five," Clark told him, and someone shoved Hanson's notepad at him.

"You write," he was ordered. "Your handwriting's the neatest."

Someone snorted. "At least that's one habit you haven't picked up from Lane."

"Yeah," Clark said, softly, as he was reminded of her yet again.

"When are she and Olsen coming back, anyway?" Troupe asked, curiously.

"Soon," Clark said. "I hope."

**XXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX**

"Now boarding Flight Four-Oh-Seven to Metropolis. Now boarding-"

Lois tuned out the flight attendant's voice as she picked up Jimmy's duffel bag from the floor and slung it over her shoulder. She grabbed his other small carry-on, as well, and Jimmy rolled his eyes at her.

"I can grab something, you know," he said.

"I've got it," Lois told him.

"I can move the wheelchair, too," Jimmy added, when Lois started pushing him toward the boarding gate.

"I've got it," Lois repeated, firmly, and Jimmy sighed.

"You did everything you could to try and get on the same flight," he told her.

"I could have done more," Lois grumbled.

"What? Threatened people?" Jimmy asked, laughing, and then he winced when the movement tugged at his stitches. "Okay, no laughing."

"Lois, I'll be fine," he protested, a moment later, when she didn't say anything. "You said your Dad and Lucy were going to pick me up, right?"

"Right," Lois confirmed. "The General said he and Chloe and Lucy would be waiting for you at the gate when you got off the plane."

"Isn't that not allowed anymore?" Jimmy asked, craning his neck around to look at Lois.

"This is the General we're talking about," Lois replied, as if that explained everything.

"When is your flight going to get into Metropolis?" Jimmy asked.

"Well, I don't leave Star City for another couple of hours, and then my flight gets routed through Denver, Chicago, and Minneapolis, so probably some time around ten tonight," Lois told him. Giving Jimmy a wry grin, she added, "With the way my luck's been going lately, I'll get stuck behind someone with a screaming kid for the whole flight."

"Or someone who tries to sell you insurance," Jimmy joked.

They reached the boarding gate, then, and the flight attendant taking tickets smiled impersonally at Lois, reaching for the bags she was holding.

"I'll take him, now," she chirped, in an overly-cheerful voice. "Thank you."

Lois rolled her eyes behind the woman's back and crouched down in front of Jimmy's wheelchair.

"Are you sure you're going to be okay?" she asked, a hint of worry in her voice.

"I'm going to be fine," he repeated, insistently.

Lois nodded and hugged him gently before stepping back and letting the flight attendant wheel him down the sky bridge to the plane. When she couldn't see Jimmy any longer, she forced herself to turn and walk back to the main waiting area, even though she felt like she should be on the plane with him. She'd been at Jimmy's bedside every day for four weeks while he recovered, and watching him get on the plane alone, when he was still so weak, was harder than she thought it would be.

To distract herself, she marched over to the nearest newsstand and dug her wallet out of the duffel bag slung over her shoulder.

"Gimme a copy of the Daily Planet," she told the cashier, pulling some bills out and putting them down on the counter.

"Don't have one," the cashier told her.

"What do you mean, you don't have one?" Lois demanded. "Did you sell out?"

"Couldn't sell out when they didn't print one," came the reply, and Lois glared at the man.

"The Daily Planet runs every day," she said, icily. "Hence the 'Daily'."

"There are other newspapers," the cashier pointed out, but Lois shook her head.

"The Planet," she repeated, firmly.

"What, do you work there?" the cashier asked, and at Lois's affirmative answer, he winced.

"Guess you didn't see the news, then," he muttered, sheepishly, slapping a copy of The Star down on the counter.

Lois looked down at the paper, and her jaw dropped open in shock when she read the headline.

"Daily Planet destroyed," Lois read out loud, snatching the paper off the counter.

"Keep it," the cashier said, gruffly, as Lois kept reading the article. "I usually don't let people read before they buy, but seeing as how you probably just lost your job…"

Lois ignored the man in favor of flipping through the pages until she reached page seventeen where the story was continued. She skimmed the bulk of the article until almost the end, when the ending paragraph struck her like a bolt of lightning.

_'Fifteen people were injured in the blast, and twenty-three more are dead, among them billionaire Oliver Queen, who was meeting with shareholders to discuss a merger with the Daily Planet by Queen Industries.'_

Lois read the paragraph several times, to make sure her eyes weren't playing tricks on her, and then flipped back to the front page. The byline listed at least a dozen Daily Planet reporters, with the first name on the list as Clark Kent.

"Gimme your phone," she snapped at the startled cashier.

"Lady, I can't just-"

"I need your phone!" she said, impatiently, lunging over the counter to grab the cordless phone from its base.

She dialed frantically, pacing back and forth as the phone rang.

"Come on, Smallville," she muttered, anxiously. "Answer your phone."


	3. Chapter 3

"I am such an idiot."

"If you write that on a piece of paper, we'll have it framed and hang it in your bedroom," Oliver said, as Clark slumped down in the empty chair in Oliver's hospital room.

"I mean it," Clark said, his voice and expression full of misery. "I really, really screwed up this time, Ollie."

"I'm not disagreeing with you," Oliver replied.

"Do you even know what I'm talking about?" Clark asked, curiously.

"Yup," Oliver said. "You had a fantastic woman in your life and you let her walk away without even trying to stop her."

"I guess you do know what I'm talking about," Clark muttered, back to miserable again.

"The question is," Oliver continued, "why'd you do it?"

"Because I'm an idiot," Clark grumbled, as if by rote.

"Yeah, we've established that," Oliver told him.

"I – I don't know," Clark admitted, finally. "I thought I could – I don't know what I was thinking!"

"You weren't," Oliver said, succinctly. "So, what brought this spate of self-pity on?"

"We were writing up the story about the explosion," Clark began, but Oliver cut him off.

"Who's we?" he interrupted.

"About a dozen Planet reporters," Clark answered. "Anyway, we were working on the story and Lois wasn't there."

Oliver smirked at him. "And you said you weren't in love with my girlfriend."

"Lois isn't your girlfriend," Clark reminded him.

"Notice how you're not denying that you're in love with Lois?" Oliver asked.

"We declared you dead, by the way," Clark told him, sarcastically.

"Any particular reason?" Oliver asked. "Or did I tick someone off?"

"There were two bombs in that conference room," Clark told him. "Someone wanted everyone in that room dead, and I'd like to make sure they don't get the chance to finish the job with you."

"Any leads?" Oliver wanted to know.

"I was checking on that when the nurse called and told me you were awake," Clark said. "But, so far, I haven't found anything."

"I'll help you," Oliver offered, snapping back the blankets on the bed. "I've just got to get on my feet."

"You were just blown up," Clark pointed out, reasonably. "You're not going anywhere."

"I'm fine," Oliver said, stubbornly, and Clark shook his head in exasperation.

Leaning over, he placed a finger against the bandages on Oliver's abdomen and pressed down, gently. Oliver gasped in pain, and then glared at Clark.

"You're not going anywhere," Clark reiterated, firmly.

"I just need to get-" Oliver yawned, loudly, and Clark bit back a smirk.

"Just need to get-" Oliver's words stopped suddenly as his head lolled to the side.

Clark smiled down at his sleeping friend and rearranged the blankets back over him before he quietly left the room. He started down the hallway toward the emergency department's waiting room, wanting to check with Cat and see how Adam was doing, when Lana stepped out of a doorway, blocking his path.

"I can't believe I found you here, of all places," she snapped, not even bothering to hide the disgust in her voice.

"People I care about are hurt, Lana," Clark shot back. "Where else would you expect me to be?"

He knew he probably sounded irritated, even angry, with her, but he really didn't care. He was tired of feeling like all he was doing with Lana was constantly going in circles.

"I expected to find you looking for Lex," Lana told him. "He's the one behind all of this."

"Lana, we don't know that," Clark insisted, sighing heavily. You know he's capable of it. Look what he did to me."

_'You got into that situation all by yourself,'_ Clark thought, but he bit back the words to keep from starting a fight.

"I just don't think Lex did this," he told her, instead. "Lana, I've been looking through old editions of the Planet-"

He trailed off when Lana stepped in close to him, laying a restraining hand on his arm and looking up at him.

"Lex did this," she stated, firmly, never looking away from him. "You need to trust me on this, Clark. Don't you trust me?"

"I-" Clark started, hesitantly. _'No,'_ he thought, immediately, and he knew it was nothing less than the absolute truth.

"Don't you trust me, Clark?" Lana repeated, only this time there was a distinctly sinister tone in her voice.

"Lana-" Clark started, but he was saved from having to answer her when his cell phone shrilled, loudly.

When he answered, his heart leapt at the sound of Lois's voice on the other end of the line.

"Lois?" he asked, quietly.

"How?" Lois repeated, and her voice sounded strangled, like she was trying to hold back a scream. "Clark, how?"

"The bombs," Clark said, as he realized what Lois was talking about. "Lois-"

"Your article said that Ollie-" Lois began, but Clark quickly cut her off.

"Lois, no," he said, before she could continue. "Lois, Oliver's fine."

"He's not dead?" Lois asked, sounding as if she didn't entirely believe Clark. "But you wrote-"

"Think about it," Clark told her. "If this maniac was after Oliver, and I printed that he was still alive-"

"He'd go after him, again," Lois finished. "I guess you didn't have a choice."

"I barely had time to convince the Star to let us run the story before they went to print," Clark told her.

"Knowing their editor, I'm surprised you could print it at all," Lois remarked. "So, do the police have any leads?"

"They've narrowed the suspects down to anyone the Planet has written about in any sort of negative light," Clark said. "John said they're confining it to the last five years, so that's only a selection of easily a thousand or so people."

"Don't forget all of Oliver's enemies," Lois reminded him, and Clark groaned.

"Tell you what," Lois said. "I'll go talk to some of the higher-ups at Queen Industries, see if they can give me any information."

"I've been checking out some things here," Clark told her. "If I find anything, I can give you a call."

"My cell phone's broken," Lois said, ruefully. "I've got see if I can find a new one. I'll call you if I find anything."

"Okay," Clark agreed. After a moment, he added, quietly, "Lois, I've missed you."

For several long seconds, Lois was silent on the other end of the line, and Clark almost thought she'd hung up on him. When she did speak up, her voice was so quiet, he almost didn't hear her.

"Did you?" she murmured, but before Clark could demand an explanation for that remark, she hurried on.

"I've got to go. Talk to you later, okay?"

"Bye, Lois," Clark said, but she'd already hung up.

When Clark clicked his phone off, he found Lana staring at him with undisguised hurt in her eyes.

"So, that's how it is," she said, angrily. "You'd rather trust Lois than you would me."

"Yes, Lana, I would," Clark snapped, his last thread of patience with her finally breaking. "Because Lois wants to investigate all the possibilities, rather than just jumping to conclusions. She wants to work with me, instead of just expecting me to follow her every order. She understands what being a partner actually means."

"Some partner," Lana said, nastily. "She couldn't even stick around when you needed her after Chloe went missing."

"She's been in Star City with Jimmy ever since he got hurt," Clark said, incredulously. "He needed her."

Lana acted like she hadn't even heard him.

"I would never leave you for anyone else," she said, smugly.

The hypocrisy of that statement left Clark staring at Lana in amazement.

"I guess that's why Lois is a better person that you could ever hope to be," he snapped, without thinking.

Lana looked like she'd just been slapped. Clark's words hung in the air between them, and for once, Clark had no desire to take back what he'd said. They stood frozen for several seconds before Lana finally glared at him.

"I'm going after Lex," she declared, quietly. "I'm going to prove to you that I'm right."

She sped away without giving him a chance to respond, and for a second, Clark considered going after her, but he quickly dismissed the impulse. Lana and her stolen powers were not his responsibility, and Lex, no matter what condition he was in, was more than capable of handling her. The bomber, however, was his responsibility, and Lois was counting on him to get his part of the investigation done.

His mind made up, Clark sped to the library and went over to the circulation desk, where the same woman who had helped him before was sitting.

"I need to look through those back issues of the Daily Planet, again."

**XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX**

"I've got a name," Lois announced, as she walked out of the main doors of Queen Industries.

"Winslow Schott?" Clark hazarded a guess.

"How'd you know?"Lois asked in surprise.

"I've been going through the library's collection of old editions of the Daily Planet," Clark told her.

"Why the library?" Lois interrupted. "Wouldn't it be faster to go through the archives?"

"Yeah, well our psychotic bomber was smart," Clark said. "He planted his last charge in the basement-"

"Where the archives are stored," Lois finished, heavily. "This guy really knew what he was doing, didn't he?"

"So, anyway,' Clark went on, "I was going through the library's collection, and I found an article written about six years ago, and it was about Schott's fall from grace. Apparently, he lost a lucrative Luthorcorp contract after he had some sort of breakdown. He started ranting about how Luthorcorp was betraying him by selling his technology to the government, and then he started destroying his work and attacked the security guards when they tried to stop him."

"I take it Luthorcorp didn't appreciate his accusations?" Lois asked, wryly.

"They promoted one of the other scientists, Karl Wyatt, to take his place after he was dismissed," Clark said.

"I think we need to find this Mr. Wyatt," Lois remarked.

"I'm already looking into it," Clark told her. "So, I figure that's why he bombed the Planet. He has a grudge against the Planet, and against Luthorcorp, which owns the Planet."

"Killing two birds with one stone," Lois replied.

"It doesn't explain why he went after Oliver, though," Clark said. "After all this, I doubt he was just collateral damage."

"He wasn't," Lois said, anger coloring her tone. "Schott applied for a job at Queen Industries about six months ago, only Ollie turned him down 'cause of that whole mental instability thing."

"Hey," Clark said, suddenly, "I think I found him."

"Schott?" Lois asked in surprise.

"No, Wyatt," Clark answered. "In Metropolis there are six Karl Wyatts, only one of whom matches the guy we're looking for. And guess what? He moved to Star City two years ago."

"Great," Lois said. "Give me the address. I'll go check him out."

Clark hesitated and Lois groaned, tapping her foot impatiently.

"What is it, now?" she demanded.

"I don't like the idea of you going after this guy alone," Clark protested, and Lois rolled her eyes.

"I'm just going to talk to the guy," she snapped. "It's not like I'm confronting some armed and dangerous criminal."

"Like that would even stop you," Clark shot back, sarcastically.

"I can find his address without you," Lois informed him. "I don't need your help."

"You can't do this alone," Clark protested.

"Well, I'm certainly not going to wait for the day or so that it takes you to get to Star City," Lois replied. "By then it could be too late."

"It won't take me a day," Clark said. "Just wait for me, Lois. Please?"

His voice grew softer on the last word, and against her better judgment, Lois could feel her resolve weakening.

"You have five minutes, and then I'm leaving without you," she informed him, brusquely.

She figured she was safe. Even if he hopped in Oliver's personal jet right that second, it would take him longer than that to get to Star City.

But, Clark seemed unfazed by her demand.

"I'll be there in two," he promised, and then the line went dead.

Lois cursed the disposable piece of junk as she shoved her temporary cell phone in her pocket. Two minutes, huh? She didn't know what Clark was up to, but she was going to hold him to his promise.

Looking down at her watch, Lois started silently counting off the seconds, and when she reached one minute forty-seven seconds, she felt a sudden blast of wind that nearly knocked her off her feet.

"Did I make it?" Clark asked, and Lois glared at him before turning on her heel and stalking downing the street.

"Where's this address?" she called back, irritably, and she heard Clark break into a jog to catch up with her.

A slow jog, she figured, considering how fast he moved to cross half the country. Not that she was the least bit interested in how he'd done it. Okay, maybe a little bit, she admitted to herself. But she certainly wasn't going to tell him that.

Clark gave her Wyatt's address, and they walked along the street in silence for a few minutes until Lois couldn't stand it any longer.

"What are you even doing here?" she demanded. "I would have thought by now that you'd be curled up on the farm with Lana in romantic bliss."

"I'm here because I'm not going to let my partner walk into a dangerous situation by herself," Clark retorted, neatly sidestepping the Lana issue.

"We're not partners," Lois informed him. "You just keep getting involved in my stories."

"Whatever helps you sleep at night," Clark muttered under his breath. When Lois shot him a dark look, he relented and muttered, "How'd you even know about Lana, anyway?"

"Chloe told me," Lois replied. "She said that you two had worked things out and were living happily ever after."

"Well, Chloe was wrong," Clark told her. "There's nothing between me and Lana. Not anymore."

Lois didn't have time to reply because they reached Wyatt's apartment building, and Clark held the door open for Lois to precede him into the building. They took the elevator up to the third floor and went to Wyatt's apartment at the end of the hall.

"Mr. Wyatt?" Lois called out, knocking on the door.

There was no answer so she knocked again, louder, and scowled when the door swung open under her hand.

"That's never good," Clark commented, trying to subtly ease into the room ahead of Lois.

He wasn't as subtle as he'd hoped for, though, because she glared at his back, elbowing him aside when they'd cleared the doorway.

"Mr. Wyatt?" Lois called out, while Clark bit back the immediate protest that leapt to his lips. "Karl Wyatt! We're reporters from the Daily Planet and we'd like to talk to you, please."

"I don't think he's here," Clark said, after a quick x-ray of the small apartment showed him exactly that.

"You don't think that Schott got to him, do you?" Lois asked, taking her own look around.

Clark's reply was cut off by a sudden shriek that made both of them jump in surprise. Clark turned to confront this newest threat only to find that the danger was only a small toy. He watched as the mechanical monkey waddled toward them, tinny cymbals crashing rhythmically together, and he let out a weak, relieved chuckle. After a moment, Lois joined him, sagging against the against the door frame in relief.

"I hate those toys," she confided to Clark. "That scream always creeps me out."

As if on cue, the monkey let out another shriek and Lois jolted slightly.

"See what I mean?" she asked, wryly.

"I'd almost forgotten that Wyatt's a toymaker, too," Clark said, and Lois whipped around, pinning him with a horrified look.

"Schott's a toymaker," she said, dread in her voice, and Clark looked again at the now-ominous toy as realization dawned.

When he listened closely, he could hear a faint ticking underneath the toy's normal mechanical sounds, and without thinking, he snatched the toy off the floor and dashed out of the apartment, into the hallway. Ignoring Lois's frantic shouts behind him, he heaved himself through the window, falling three stories to crash heavily into the ground below.

He curled around the still-ticking toy and barely a second later, the bomb detonated. The force of the explosion so close to his body drove the air from his lungs, and the flash seared his eyes and ears, leaving him temporarily blind and deaf. He lay on the ground curled around the remains of the bomb, drawing in short gasps of air as he waited for the spots to stop dancing in front of his eyes.

When his vision finally did clear, the first thing he saw was Lois crouched over him, her mouth moving a mile a minute. He figured she was yelling at him, and he was momentarily grateful that he couldn't hear her. Then sound slowly came back.

"-dare be dead! Your crazy, stupid – don't you even think about dying on me!"

"Wouldn't dream of it," Clark coughed out, and Lois's gaze sharpened when she realized that the object of her ire was awake.

"What the hell were you thinking?" she exploded, furiously, as he slowly sat up.

"I was thinking, 'Get the bomb out of the apartment'," Clark answered. "So, I did."

"You could have been killed!" Lois snarled at him. "You jumped out that window and I thought for sure you were dead."

"Well, I'm sorry I scared you," Clark retorted, "but I didn't exactly have much of a choice."

Lois just shook her head. "I knew I should have gone after this guy by myself," she muttered, and Clark let out a sharp bark of incredulous laughter.

"Oh, really?" he asked. "Tell me, Lois. What were you going to do about that bomb by yourself?" When Lois didn't say anything, he added, "Face it, Lois. You need me."

That got her hackles up. "I do not need you," she growled. "And what do you care?" she demanded, a second later. "You didn't seem to care very much when Lana waltzed back in the picture."

Clark winced like he'd just been slapped.

"Look," he finally said. "I am the first to admit that my behavior regarding Lana has been jerkish, to say the very least. I'm a different person when I'm around Lana, and I don't like being that way. Lana and I are over; we have been for the past seven months."

Lois huffed, incredulously, clearly not convinced, and Clark let out an aggravated sigh.

"Lana and I are done," he repeated, firmly. "There's more between you and me than there is between me and her."

"There is nothing between us," Lois snapped, but her voice shook slightly as she declared it.

"What about Chloe and Jimmy's wedding?" Clark shot back. "Or, did you forget how we almost kissed?"

"That was a mistake," Lois said, angrily.

"The only mistake I made was not stopping you when you walked away!" Clark exploded, and as the words hung in the air between them, they both remembered that they were standing out in the middle of the street.


	4. Chapter 4

"The only mistake I made was not stopping you when you walked away!" Clark exploded, and as the words hung in the air between them, they both remembered that they were standing out in the middle of the street.

"Aww, their first fight," a voice cooed from behind them, and they turned around to see an elderly couple watching them.

"Do you remember our first fight?" the woman asked her husband, a fond, reminiscent smile on her face. The man nodded.

"We still have that vase you threw at my head," he said, affectionately.

"Um, excuse me," Lois began, but the woman cut her off.

"Now, I know it seems like the end of the world for you two, dear," she said, patting Lois's hand, "but you're young and you'll work this out."

"A week from now, you'll look back on this and laugh," the man added.

"And anyway," the woman continued to her captive audience, "at your age, the makeup sex is always worth it."

She gave Lois a conspiratorial wink and then, laughing, she and her husband went on their way. Lois tried to say something, but only a strangled sound came out of her throat. Clark, for his part, felt like his eyes were about to pop out of his head.

"What does it say about us," he finally managed to get out, "when complete strangers think that we fight like an old, married couple?"

Lois managed to hold her glare for about ten seconds and then she let out a weak chuckle as she took in the sheepish expression on Clark's face. He started grinning as he saw the humor in the situation, and then they both started laughing outright at the absurdity of it all.

"We don't fight like an old, married couple," Lois corrected him, when she got her breath back. "Remember, at our age-"

"The makeup sex is worth it," Clark quoted, and that set them off, again.

When they finally calmed down, Clark reached out and snagged Lois's hand, and she looked at him in surprise.

"Lois, I'm sorry," he said, earnestly. "I am so sorry. The last thing I ever wanted to do was hurt you."

"But that's exactly what you did," Lois told him, sobering quickly. "Lana Lang walked back into your life and it was like I-"

She broke off, mid-sentence and stared down at their joined hands, her cheeks flushing red with embarrassment at having revealed even that much about her feelings.

"I acted like you didn't even exist," Clark finished for her, quietly. "Lois-"

"Maybe we're just better off as friends," Lois interjected, quickly, looking as if each word was being ripped out of her.

"No!" Clark protested, immediately, Lois's words jolting him in a way nothing else had. "Lois, I can't imagine my life without you in it. And I'm not going to be happy with just being friends."

"Then why would you-" Lois trailed off as she looked at Clark in confusion, and he hated himself for putting that hurt look on her face.

"I don't know," he admitted, quietly.

"Well, maybe you need to figure it out," Lois told him, just as quietly.

She turned away, then, and walked to the end of the street, her back to him. Clark let her go, figuring she needed the space, and pulled his cell phone out. He dialed Chloe's number and she picked up on the third ring.

"Hey, Clark," she greeted him. "Guess who just got home?"

"Jimmy made it back safely, then?" Clark asked, smiling at the happiness in her voice.

"He's going to be at Metropolis General for at least a couple of weeks, because they don't want him to be without medical supervision, but, yeah, he's home."

"That's great," Clark told her. "Hey, Chloe, I was wondering if you could use your magic laptop to look something up."

"Clark," Chloe interrupted, and he started at the suddenly-somber tone in her voice. "I've got some bad news."

"Oliver," Clark said, as a tight knot of fear formed in the pit of his stomach. At his words, Lois whipped around, staring at him in horror.

"No, no," Chloe said, quickly, and Clark sagged with relief. "Clark, Oliver's fine. Better than fine. He's griping at the nurses and grumbling about hospital food."

As Lois came over to where he was standing, he covered the mouthpiece of the phone and gave her a weak smile.

"Oliver's fine," he reassured her, and Lois dropped her head against his shoulder, sighing heavily.

"Chloe," Clark told his friend, "when people are in the hospital, you don't start sentences with 'I've got bad news'."

"Sorry," Chloe apologized. "But, what I've got isn't good."

"What is it?" Clark asked, angling the phone out so that Lois could hear whatever it was.

"You remember that radiator in Isis where you found that DVD?" Chloe asked. At Clark's affirmative, she added, "I was looking down in that space, today, and I found a flash drive hidden in the back corner."

"What was on it?" Lois asked, impatiently.

"A list of meteor infected people who aren't in the main database," Chloe told them. "Most of them are dangerous, really dangerous. And Lana's on it."

"Lana," Lois repeated, flatly. "Lana's meteor infected?"

"She classifies her ability as emotional manipulation," Chloe said, quickly.

"Emotional manipulation," Clark echoed, flatly. "Like she's been messing with people's minds?"

"That's what it looks like," Chloe told them. "She's got documentation-"

Chloe broke off and took a deep breath, as if she was trying to compose herself. There was silence on the other end of the line, broken by the occasional choked noise as she fought for control. Clark felt that icy knot of fear clench even tighter as he wondered what could be so much worse about the news that it would make Chloe cry.

Beside him, Lois was gripping his arm, tightly, her face set in tense lines as she waited anxiously for Chloe to continue. When she finally did, her voice was ragged and hoarse.

"Lana has a series of files documenting every time she used her powers," Chloe said, quietly. "It goes all the way back to when she was eight; she probably transcribed it from a diary or something."

"That's a couple of years after her aunt Nell gave her that kryp – meteor rock necklace," Clark said, with a quick glance at Lois to see if she'd noticed his almost-slip.

Then, he wondered why he was even bothering to hide the truth from Lois at all at this point. She'd already seen him use his powers and didn't seem to have a problem with him, so far.

"A couple of years is plenty of time to be exposed to enough radiation to give her powers," Lois spoke up, breaking into Clark's thoughts. When he looked at her in surprise, she added, "If she was wearing a chunk of it around her neck, that's probably how she was infected."

"Anyway," Chloe interrupted, gently, "the earliest files are about little things – convincing a teacher to give her a better grade, convincing her aunt Nell to buy her a horse."

"How is that little?" Lois asked, incredulously, and Clark was suddenly a little afraid of what Chloe might say.

"Well, in comparison to some of the other stuff," Chloe said, hesitantly, and from the way her voice trailed off, it was clear she didn't want to elaborate on that statement.

"What other stuff?" Clark asked, anyway.

"Small stuff at first," Chloe repeated, reluctantly. "Getting people to pay attention to her, getting Whitney Fordman to ask her out."

"Chloe," Clark interrupted, even if he wondered if he really wanted to know the answer. "Am I in that file?"

There was a long silence and then, "Yes."

"More small stuff?" Lois asked, quietly, when Clark couldn't seem to make himself say anything. At Lois's question, he found himself holding his breath in anticipation of Chloe's answer.

"No," Chloe said, regretfully, and there were definitely tears in her voice that she was struggling to hold back.

"What did she say?" Clark asked, struggling to force the words out past a lump in his throat.

"Clark-" Chloe began, hesitantly.

"What did she say?" he demanded, hoarsely.

"October 12, 2001," Chloe said, quietly, reading from her computer screen. "Clark Kent tried to ask me out, today. It was almost cute the way he kept stuttering. I said no, of course, but I couldn't help encouraging him a little bit. It's fun knowing that I can lead him around like a puppy and make Whitney jealous at the same time."

"There's more, isn't there?" Clark demanded, when Chloe stopped her recitation. "What else is there?"

He knew he shouldn't do this to himself, shouldn't listen to all the times that Lana had apparently screwed with his head, but he couldn't help it. She'd taken his free will, from the look of things; he wanted to know what else she'd stolen from him.

"September 3, 2004," Chloe continued, after a long moment of silence. "Clark asked Lois to the County Fair. I saw them in line for one of the roller coasters. Clark didn't even look at me, and when I walked over, all he said was hello. Like we were practically strangers. And the way he kept looking at Lois, he's never looked at me like that. Not yet, anyway."

"Please don't make me read another one of those," Chloe said, when she'd finished. "It's hard enough reading them to myself."

"How many more files are there?" Clark asked, quietly.

"With your name on them?" Chloe clarified. "Over a thousand. There's not too many at first, maybe one a week, sometimes two, but there's more as time goes on. Some days have up to a dozen incidents, some have more." Quieter, she added, "There's at least one a day since she came back during the wedding."

Clark felt sick. For the first time in his life, he thought he might actually throw up. He could hear Chloe's voice over the phone, but he couldn't seem to comprehend what she was saying. When he felt a hand on his shoulder, he looked down into Lois's worried gaze.

"Give me the phone," she said, gently, and Clark let it fall into her hand before he stumbled away, blindly, ignoring Lois's quiet, "Smallville," from behind him.

He could barely wrap his mind around what he'd just learned. Lana had been using him for years, leading him around "like a puppy". And why? Because she enjoyed the attention? Because she enjoyed having him at her beck and call?

He wondered if anything she'd felt for him had been real; if what he'd felt for her had ever been real. Or, was their entire relationship just one big lie?

**XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX**

Lois watched Clark stumble away from her, reeling like he'd just been shot. And small wonder, considering how his life had just been shattered.

Turning her attention back to the phone and Chloe who was waiting, she asked quietly, "Is she still in Metropolis?"

"I don't know where Lana is," Chloe replied. "Trust me, Lois. I'm as mad at Lana as you are."

"I doubt that," Lois muttered, darkly. "That file, does it get any worse than that second entry you read?"

"Yes," Chloe answered, reluctantly. "It's like Lana was obsessed with Clark. She couldn't stand the thought of him even looking at another woman, so every time he started showing interest in someone who wasn't her, she used her power to reel him back in."

"And yet it didn't seem to matter to her if she was the one who was with someone else," Lois said, angrily. "How often did she wind up doing this, anyway? I know you said a lot-"

"I think it worked kind of like a drug," Chloe interrupted. "The longer this went on, the more she had to use her power to keep Clark from leaving her."

"And then when she left for seven months, her enslavement wore off," Lois said.

"I don't know that I'd call it that," Chloe said, hesitantly, but Lois snorted in disbelief.

"That's exactly what it was," she spit out. "That bitch took away his choice, his ability to choose, and made him do everything she wanted."

"It wasn't just Clark, though," Chloe told her. "Lana messed with a lot of people's heads, especially every time Clark started to stray from her. There's one name in particular that pops up a lot over the last four and a half years."

"Who?" Lois asked, reluctantly, unsure she wanted to hear the answer.

"You," Chloe replied, quietly. Over Lois's shocked silence, she continued, "You and Clark have been dancing around each other for some time now."

"Smallville and I are just really good friends," Lois protested, automatically.

"It was amazing you could even stay that much with how much Lana interfered," Chloe said. "She even-"

"Had you acting as her cheerleader?" Lois finished, when Chloe trailed off. "Did she really think of me as that much of a threat to her?"

"Yes," Chloe said, bluntly. "I think it's pretty safe to say that Lana hated you."

"Right now, the feeling is mutual," Lois growled. "Chloe, I need a favor."

"Anything," Chloe said, immediately.

"I need you to find anything you can on a Winslow Schott," Lois told her. "Clark and I are pretty sure that he's the guy who bombed the Planet."

"I'll get back to you as soon as I can," Chloe promised, and then the line went dead in Lois's ear.

Clicking off Clark's cell phone, she pocketed it and walked over to where he was standing. He was staring out at the street with a lost expression on his face and his arms were wrapped protectively around his abdomen.

Lois's heart ached for him, and she found herself hating Lana even more for what she'd done. When she laid a hand on Clark's arm, he jolted, looking surprised to see her standing in front of him.

"Smallville?" she ventured, quietly, when he just stared at her without a word. "You okay? Do you want to talk about this?"

He was silent for so long she thought that he hadn't even heard her, and then he finally spoke up, quietly. "How do I know it's not all a lie?"

"Know what wasn't a lie?" Lois asked, momentarily confused.

"How do I know that Lana didn't manipulate everyone around me?" Clark asked, plaintively. "How do I know what was real?"

"The people in your life care about you, Clark," Lois told him, firmly. "Your parents, Pete, Chloe, Oliver – Lana didn't create their feelings for you, didn't change them. Nothing could do that."

"What about you and me?" Clark asked, so quietly that Lois almost didn't hear him.

"I care about you, too," Lois hedged. "I-"

She hesitated, afraid of what his reaction would be, but then took a deep breath and plowed on, remembering what Chloe had said about them dancing around each other.

"I care a lot about you," she said, in a rush. "More than a lot, actually."

Clark looked at her with an expression akin to hope, and she continued, doggedly. "This thing between us? This is real. We're real."

Clark didn't say anything for a long time; he just stared at her, frozen. Then, he moved suddenly and wrapped her in a tight hug, burying his face in her shoulder. Lois hung on, reminded of when she'd found Clark after he'd seen Lana's break-up DVD. Only this betrayal was so much worse.

"I thought you said there wasn't anything between us," Clark finally muttered, into her hair, and Lois let out a weak, relieved chuckle.

"I may have fudged a little," she admitted.

Clark pulled away, but didn't move far, only resting his forehead against hers.

"Thank you," he said, sounding very tired. "Thank you for being here."

"Like I'd be anywhere else?" Lois asked, wryly.

Clark's cell phone shrilled a second later, and when she answered it, Chloe sounded frantic.

"Lois, I talked to Clark's friend, Detective Jones, and he found an old warehouse being leased by Winslow Schott."

"You found him?" Lois asked, excitedly, as she angled the phone out for Clark to listen.

"No," Chloe said, but before they could protest, she continued, "They found a miniature cityscape with the Daily Planet completely destroyed. Jones thinks there's another bomb on the Planet."


	5. Chapter 5

"Jones thinks there's another bomb on the Planet."

Chloe's words stunned both of them into silence.

"So, Schott's still out there?" Lois asked, after a second.

"He's a hard man to track down," Chloe told them. "But I'm working on it."

"We'll be there as soon as we can," Clark told her.

Lois clicked off Clark's phone and handed it back to him, and he stowed it away in his pocket.

"I can get us back home in about a minute," Clark told her. "But you'll have to hang on to me."

"Why?" Lois asked, unthinkingly.

"Because I didn't bring the sidecar with me," Clark said, sarcastically, and Lois rolled her eyes at him.

At Clark's urging, she wound her arms around his neck and he scooped her up into his arms.

"You ready?" Clark asked and Lois nodded, tightening her grip around his neck as a precaution.

Clark started running and as they picked up speed, Lois had to duck her head to protect her face from the force of the wind. She didn't even want to think about how fast they had to be moving; she just knew that she didn't want to let go. They arrived at the Planet after only seconds had gone by, and Clark set Lois down as they surveyed the building.

"If you wanted to put a bomb on a building that had already been bombed once," Lois asked, "where would you put it?"

"If it's in what's left of the basement, that would pretty much level the entire building," Clark replied, but Lois shook her head.

"From what you said, the top floors are pretty much gutted," she said.

"You think the bomb is on the roof?" Clark asked, skeptically.

"I think someone who's as big a showman as Schott wouldn't be able to resist the symbolism of blowing up the globe," Lois replied, pointing upward to the structure which was still standing despite the earlier assault.

"The roof it is, then," Clark said, scooping Lois up and speeding up the stairs.

They reached the roof a few seconds later, and then Lois yelped in surprise as she was abruptly dumped on the concrete. Scrambling to her feet, Lois turned to Clark to demand an explanation, only to find him doubled over and clearly in agony.

"Smallville, what's wrong?" she asked, taking a step toward him.

"Kryptonite," he gasped out, painfully. "The meteor rocks, they're poisonous to me."

Lois remembered the strange grimace that had crossed his face on the day of Chloe and Jimmy's wedding, when the blushing bride had practically shoved one of the glowing green rocks under his nose. She looked around for this new threat and saw a small box sitting in the middle of the roof, pulsing with the same, sickly green glow.

"I think we found the bomb," Lois said, as she walked over to inspect it. "You stay there," she added to Clark, who sank back down to the roof at her words.

"Maybe we can disarm it," he called out. "Do you see any wires?"

"There's nothing," Lois told him as she carefully picked the device up, turning her skin the same luminescent green color. "There's not even a timer. It's like Schott welded the entire thing shut."

"It could go off at any second, then," Clark said. "Lois, get away from it."

"I don't know what good that's going to do," Lois told him, even as she set the box back down and stepped quickly back to his side. "We can't open it, and even if we had the time to wait for the bomb squad, they'd never be able to cut it open and disarm it before it exploded."

"I guess there's no choice, then," Clark said quietly, staring at the bomb.

"What are you talking about?" Lois demanded, suspiciously.

"I'm sorry for everything," Clark told her, smiling slightly. "I really do love you."

Then, leaving Lois in shocked silence behind him, he ran across the roof and scooped the bomb up, ignoring the sudden stabbing pain in his chest. When he reached the edge of the roof, he pushed off as hard as he could, launching himself into the air. He needed to jump as high as he could as fast as he could before he released the bomb.

Below him, Lois yelled an indignant "Smallville!" after him, but he forced himself not to look back at her, even when he could hear the fear in her voice.

He had to do this; there was no other way. And he couldn't afford to let Lois distract him.

When he'd climbed as high as he thought he could go, he threw the bomb straight up into the air. A few seconds later, the bomb exploded, and the heat and flames from the explosion blew over him, and he curled inward as the heat seared his skin. A wave of nausea swept over him and he realized that it was the last remnants of the kryptonite that had been coating the bomb.

As he started falling, it occurred to him that he really should have listened to Kara when she tried to teach him to fly. The wind whistled past his ears as he fell and he quickly decided that there was no better time than the present to learn.

He closed his eyes and concentrated solely on one thing: stopping. He kept falling but, and it may have been his imagination, he thought he was slowing down a little bit. And right before he hit the middle of Main Street, leaving a big, star-shaped crack radiating out from the center of the asphalt, he could have sworn that he hovered.

He climbed slowly to his feet and then froze when he realized that he was quickly being surrounded by an excited, noisy mob of people. He imagined that there had to have been a deer-in-the-headlights look on his face, but none of the crowd seemed to notice it. They crowded closer and closer and Clark almost panicked until one of the people shouted something.

"It's the Red-Blue Blur!"

An excited murmur swept through the already-wound up crowd. Clark looked down and realized for the first time that day what he'd put on that morning: red jacket, blue shirt, and blue jeans. Only they weren't immediately recognizable as clothes, anymore.

The heat from the explosion had warped and melted the fabric of the shirt and jeans, adhering the clothes to him like a second skin. And the jacket was in tatters as it hung from his shoulders in jagged pieces of red that could almost look like a cape. If it wasn't scrutinized too closely, the whole outfit could be mistaken for a costume almost like the one Oliver wore as the Green Arrow.

A hushed whisper of "Did you see that?" caught his attention, and he tuned in to the crowd to hear snatches of, "He saved the city." "Man, did you see that explosion!" "He's awesome!"

They weren't vilifying him, Clark realized, startled. They were cheering him.

He caught Lois out of the corner of his eye, and when he saw her standing at the outer edge of the crowd on the seat of a park bench, she beamed at him. Then, her eyes widened in shock and she started unceremoniously pushing her way through the crowd, elbowing aside anyone who wouldn't move. Clark looked around to try and find what had her so alarmed, and then he saw Ron Troupe emerging at the inner edge of the crowd. Clark drew in a quick, tense breath, staring, frozen, at Troupe.

This was it; he was standing out in the open, without a mask or disguise of any kind. He had practically no chance of hiding his identity from Troupe, who he'd worked with for months, now. Not unless the man had taken a recent blow to the head.

Lois had clearly come to the same conclusion, because even as she pushed her way through the crowd to stand at Troupe's side, she was looking around quickly to try and find something, anything to help him. Then her gaze fell on the nearby park bench that she'd been standing on and her eyes lit up.

Clark followed her gaze, and felt his spirits sink. The ad on the back of the bench was for a local travel company, advertising "Super Deals on Hot Vacations!" and Clark was pretty sure he knew where Lois was going.

He was also pretty sure he didn't like the idea.

A slow grin spread over her face at the dismayed look on his face, and he tried to subtly shake his head. She wouldn't, she couldn't do what he thought she was going to.

"Superman!"

She did.

"Superman! Lois Lane, Daily Planet! Do you have a few words for the front page?"

"Sorry, Ms. Lane," Clark replied, lowering his voice and hoping Troupe wouldn't catch him at it. "Maybe another time; I've got a bomber to catch."

"I'll hold you to that!" Lois hollered after him as he jumped over the edge of the crowd and started to speed away. Then, under her breath he heard her quiet murmur of, "Three-thirty-five Astin Street."

He didn't know where Lois had gotten her information, but he trusted her source, and he ran in the direction of Astin Street, counting the numbers on the buildings as he passed them. Three-thirty-five turned out to be another abandoned warehouse in the middle of the old business district.

Slowing down, he went inside the building cautiously, letting his eyes get used to the darkened interior. He saw a table set up in the center of the room, and walking over, he found it covered with all manner of explosive devices. He had just grabbed one of the explosives and was about to hurl them one by one into space when a series of floodlights went on all around the building, temporarily blinding him.

"What are you doing in here?" a furious voice demanded, and Clark watched Winslow Schott stomp over to him, seething so hard the air around him practically vibrated from the force of it.

"You hurt a lot of people, Schott," Clark told him, still keeping his voice in that same low pitch. "I'm here to take you to the police."

"And just who are you?" Schott laughed at him.

"I'm…Superman," Clark said, reluctantly, still unable to believe the name Lois had saddled him with.

Schott laughed again, clearly unimpressed, and pressed one of several buttons hanging on chains around his neck. Clark whirled away from the table as soon as he'd pressed the button, shielding the other explosives from the backlash of the one. Then, he turned and displayed the charred ruins of the bomb to Schott, who stared at him, gaping.

"Who are you?" he demanded, incredulously, a hint of fear in his voice.

"I told you," Clark said, more confident now. "I'm Superman."

"I'm not going to the police," Schott snarled.

"You can turn yourself in, or I can take you in," Clark informed him. "Those are your choices."

"Not my only choices," Schott said, angrily.

He pulled something from his pocket and wound a dial a couple of times before throwing it at Clark. Clark caught the grenade that was disguised as a small stuffed puppy and closed his hands around it to contain the explosion.

"Didn't we already go through this?" Clark asked, rhetorically.

At this, Schott turned tail and bolted for the exit. Clark sighed, zipping over to block the doors, and grabbed Schott when the other man almost collided with him.

"You're still going to prison," Clark told him.

He heard footsteps behind him and he turned around to find several police officers, John Jones and Dan Turpin among them, hurrying toward the warehouse. Clark had another moment of fear where he thought that Turpin would know who he was, but the other man just stared at him in shock with no hint of recognition in his eyes.

"Here's your bomber, officers," Clark said, quickly, handing Schott over to the stunned cops before they could say anything. "And I believe you'll find all the proof you need inside the warehouse. Be careful," he added, sharply, when two of the cops started to go inside. "They're armed and ready to blow."

"Maybe we should wait for the bomb squad," one of the cops spoke up.

"I could help you with that," Clark offered. "If you'd like."

"Okay," the other cop said, even as he eyed Clark skeptically. "Come on, then."

Clark let the two men precede him into the building, and then, while the cops watched in amazement, Clark x-rayed each of the explosives and then burned through the trigger wires to defuse them. When all that remained on the table was an inert pile of metal, Clark stepped back and let the cops do their jobs.

"Who are you?" one of the men asked, in a hushed whisper.

"I'm Superman," Clark told them, the name coming easier to his lips every time he used it.

"Superman, huh?" the other man echoed. "Cool name."

"If I could have a moment of your time-"

Clark turned at the sound of John's voice to see the older man waiting for him, patiently.

"I'd like to take a statement from you, if you don't mind," he said.

Clark nodded and walked over to join the older man.

"Hey," the first cop called from behind him. "Thanks for all the help, Superman."

"Any time," Clark promised, and then he followed John out of the warehouse.

"That is certainly an interesting look for you," John remarked, and Clark sighed.

"The heat generated by the bomb on the Daily Planet did this," he explained. "You know, I thought I was screwed when Turpin walked up and looked at me," he added. "I thought for sure that he would have recognized me."

"You don't exactly look like yourself," John told him, gesturing at one of the warehouse's broken windows.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Clark grumbled, but he went over to the window anyway, and looked at his reflection in the jagged piece of glass.

What he saw surprised him a little. His face was lined with dark streaks of soot from the explosion and his hair was slicked tight back against his head. But his expression was what surprised him. He could barely recognize the expression of determination and focus, the stillness that had settled over his face. Like John had said, he didn't really look like himself.

"It also doesn't hurt that no one would expect to find mild-mannered Clark Kent running around the city in tights and a cape," John added.

"They're jeans," Clark muttered, defensively, and the older man smirked.

"Do you think I'm doing the right thing?" Clark asked, quietly, after a moment. "This whole costumed superhero thing isn't a bad idea, is it?"

John looked pensive for a moment and Clark found himself waiting anxiously for the other man's answer. He knew he didn't need John's approval, but he wanted it.

"I think this is a very good idea," John said, after a long moment. The world needs a symbol of hope, needs something to believe in. People need their heroes, especially in darker times. They need you, Superman."


	6. Chapter 6

"I'm sorry for everything," Clark said, and to Lois's ears he sounded more rueful than apologetic. "I really do love you."

Lois gaped at him, stunned into silence, and it took seeing Clark sprint across the roof toward the bomb to make her snap out of it.

"Smallville!" she yelled, but he ignored her as he grabbed the bomb and then hurled himself off the roof.

She sprinted after him, afraid to look down, afraid of what she was going to see, but there was nothing on the ground. Not even a Clark-shaped dent in the sidewalk. Then, something caught the corner of her eye and she looked up to see a small dot rising rapidly into the air. She realized what it was barely a second before it exploded in a wave of fire that covered the sky.

A wild scream was ripped from her throat as she stared up in the sky in horror. She stood frozen at the edge of the roof, praying desperately for a miracle even through she knew it wasn't likely. Clark had called that stuff poisonous, and that explosion had been so big…

Movement caught the corner of her eye, and when she noticed something falling through the air, she turned and sprinted back to the door, pounding down the stairs. Halfway down, she pulled her cell phone out and called Chloe, impatiently waiting for her cousin to answer.

"Tell me you found him," she snapped as soon as Chloe had picked up. "Winslow Schott," she prodded, impatiently, when Chloe expressed confusion. "Tell me you found him."

"There's another warehouse right next to the first one," Chloe told her. "It's registered under his mother's maiden name; that's probably why the cops didn't pick up on it the first time."

"Where?" Lois demanded, tears choking her voice, and Chloe hesitated at the sound.

"Lois-" she began, but Lois cut her off, angrily.

"Clark may be dead because of that maniac," she growled, "and I'm going to make sure he pays for it."

"Lois, maybe you should just let the cops deal with this," Chloe suggested.

"Just give me the damn address!" Lois yelled, as her patience snapped, not caring how her voice echoed in the empty stairwell.

"Three-thirty-five Astin Street," Chloe said, reluctantly, and Lois muttered a quick thanks before snapping her phone shut and continuing her headlong rush down the stairs.

She hit the ground floor at almost a run and bolted out of the main doors, intent on hailing a taxi, when she practically ran into a wall of people crowding the sidewalk.

She tried edging her way through to see what had the crowd so excited, even as she feared she already knew, but she kept getting pushed back for her troubles. After a couple more fruitless attempts to get through, she finally, in frustration, jumped onto a nearby park bench to try and see a way through the crowd.

And that's when she saw Clark standing in the middle of the street with a dazed expression on his face.

Lois felt her heart leap into her throat at the sight of him and her knees nearly buckled with relief. She throttled back the urge to yell out his name, but he must have sensed her anyway because he swung his head around to look straight at her, a slow smile spreading across his face.

She beamed back at him, not caring how goofy she looked, but her smile froze when she saw Ron Troupe pushing his way through the crowd, a determined look on his face. Knowing she had to do something, even if she didn't quite know what, Lois jumped down from the bench and started pushing her way through the crowd, this time using her elbows as needed.

She wracked her brain trying to think of what to do, and then her gaze landed on the park bench she'd just been standing on. An ad on the back of the bench proclaimed "Super Deals on Hot Vacations," and a slow smile spread over her face. Clark had obviously noticed the sign as well, because his eyes went wide and he looked almost panicked. Her grin only got bigger.

"Superman!" she called out, and the look of sheer disbelief on Clark's face almost had her breaking cover and laughing. "Superman! Lois Lane, Daily Planet! Do you have a few words for the front page?"

"Sorry, Ms. Lane, maybe another time," Clark said, playing along and where had that deep voice come from? It was kind of sexy.

A millisecond later, Lois gave herself a mental slap fro that thought and focused on the rest of what Clark was saying.

"I've got a bomber to catch," he added, and then he disappeared.

"I'll hold you to that," Lois hollered after him. "And now, three-thirty-five Astin Street," she muttered under her breath.

She turned and pushed her way back through the dispersing crowd to hail a taxi, only to find Ron Troupe entering from the other side when one had stopped for her.

"You know, I wrote the first story about the Red-Blue-Blur," he commented, before she could protest.

"I'm still going to get the first interview," she informed him.

"And I'm still coming with you," he shot back, and Lois glared at him before finally relenting.

"Three-thirty-five Astin," she told the driver, who took off with a speed that almost made her heart jump out of her chest.

By the time they reached the old warehouse district, Lois was fairly certain her hair was standing on end, and Troupe had to practically peel his fingers from the door handle before he got out.

_'Never taking a Metropolis cab again,'_ she vowed, as she climbed out of the cab on slightly-shaky legs.

"Wait here," Troupe told the driver, leaning in through his window. "We'll be coming back."

"Speak for yourself," Lois said, as they walked away. "I'm not putting my life in that man's hands, again."

"What, are you going to walk back?" Troupe asked, sarcastically.

"I'll catch a ride with Superman," Lois told him, smugly.

"Boy, one promise for an interview and suddenly you've got the guy at your beck and call," Troupe commented.

"You have no idea," Lois muttered, and Troupe looked at her curiously. She just shook her head, and he let the matter drop.

They approached the warehouse as a trio of police cars were driving away, and Lois guessed that the ranting man in the back of one of the cars had to be Schott.

"How'd the police beat us here?" Troupe asked.

"Chloe must have called them," Lois told him. At his blank look, she clarified, "My cousin, Chloe Sullivan? Used to work at the Planet?"

"Don't remember her," Troupe said, dismissively.

"Well, she's the one who got me this address," Lois said, and then she caught sight of Clark talking to his cop friend, Detective John Jones.

"There's our superhero," Troupe said, and there was a noticeable trace of pride in his voice. "Just wait until the Planet runs tomorrow."

"With whose story?" Lois asked, a challenging note in her voice.

"Tell you what," Troupe told her. "I'll give you Schott's arrest and the Superman interview, if you let me write about Superman saving the city."

"Clark was with me when we found the bomb," Lois told him.

"You two can share the arrest story," Troupe said, and Lois shrugged, admitting defeat.

"You get the Superman story," she conceded. "But, journalism is war, Ron, and next time, it's every man for himself."

"Do you always have to be so competitive?" Troupe complained.

"It's what I live for," Lois said, satisfaction in her voice.

Striding over to Clark and Jones, she asked in a low voice, "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Clark said, just as quietly, and then as Troupe caught up, he added, louder, "I'll be happy to tell you anything I can about Winslow Schott's arrest."

"Superman," Troupe interrupted, excitedly, before Lois could reply. "This is – wow. Do you think I could get a picture for the Planet?"

Lois could see Clark struggling to keep his instinctive panic off his face before he nodded, and Troupe whipped out a small digital camera to snap several pictures.

"This is going to go great with my story," he crowed, and Clark's wince was almost visible.

"Glad to be of service," he said, weakly.

"So, this costume," Troupe went on, blithely. "Did you have this specially made?"

"It's not exactly finished yet," Clark muttered, and Troupe nodded, knowingly.

"Still going to stick with the red and blue combo?" he continued.

"I think so," Clark said, clearly not used to being on the interviewee side of the equation. "It seems to be working for me."

"Great, great," Troupe enthused. "One last thing. Got any quotes for the Daily Planet?"

"I'm here to protect Metropolis," Clark said, and the words sounded more confident than his last responses. Lois grinned at him from behind Troupe's back, mouthing, 'Nice one,' silently.

"I've got to get going before the cabbie takes off," Troupe said, suddenly. "Lois, are you sure you're okay to get back?"

"I'm fine," Lois assured him, touched by his concern.

"I've got reports of my own to write up," Jones spoke up. After bidding Lois and Clark goodbye, he walked the other man over to his taxi, probably to ensure that he really did leave, and then drove off.

When they were finally alone, Lois threw her arms around Clark, holding on as tight as she could. He hugged her back, holding on until she pulled away to look him in the eye.

"I'm sorry," Clark said, before she could speak. "I know what you're going to say, but there wasn't any time to explain things. Not before the bomb would have exploded. I'm sorry I scared you."

"You know," Lois said, after a moment, "you take all the fun out of yelling at you."

"I'm sorry?" Clark ventured, this time with a hint of a cheeky smile gracing his features, and Lois punched him affectionately on the arm.

"Come on, Smallville," she said. "Let's go home. We have a story to write, and you still owe me an interview."

"Let's go, then," Clark said, and as Lois yelped in surprise, he scooped her up in his arms and started running.

A few seconds later, he stopped in the kitchen of the farmhouse and set Lois down with a flourish.

"We're here," he announced, and Lois rolled her eyes at him.

"I need coffee," she declared. "Lots and lots of coffee."

"This has been a stressful day," Clark commented.

"Stressful couple of days," Lois corrected him. Looking over at him, she added, "How are you holding up? You okay?"

"I'm trying not to think about a lot of it," he admitted, quietly. "I just – I can't believe Lana would do what she did. But at the same time, I can."

"Lana really-" Lois trailed off, uncertain of how to finish that sentence without hurting Clark in the process.

"Lana did a lot of unforgivable things," Clark said, quietly. "She twisted what I used to feel for her into something I don't even recognize any more." After a moment, he added, "She tried to destroy what I feel for you. What you felt for me."

"What I still feel for you," Lois told him, firmly, "Nothing, and I mean nothing, is going to come between Lois and Clark. Although, if you ever pull another stunt like that-"

A strange expression came over Clark's face at her words, and then he shook his head, bemused.

"I remember that fair that Lana talked about," Lois continued, when he stayed silent. "You won me that silly little bear in that balloon-popping game."

"What are you calling silly?" Clark challenged. "That bear had a place of honor in your boxes when you wanted to move back in."

"I didn't say I didn't like it," Lois replied, defensively. "Jerome's cute."

"You named the bear Jerome?" Clark asked, in disbelief, and Lois glared at him, just daring him to say anything else.

"I always wondered how you popped all those balloons," Lois said, changing the subject. "Those games are rigged; it's almost impossible to win."

"And yet you haven't asked how I could survive two bomb explosions," Clark remarked. "Or, how I got to California in two minutes, or-"

"Well, at first I was mad at you," Lois admitted, cutting him off. "Then after we found out what Lana had done, I figured you'd had enough of people pushing their way into your life."

"Lois, you've been pushing your way into my life since day one," Clark told her, in fond exasperation. "And I wouldn't have it any other way."

"Does that mean I get that interview you promised me?" Lois asked, smirking.

"I'm an alien from the planet Krypton," Clark told her, and Lois's eyebrows shot up. She hadn't been expecting him to be so forward.

"Krypton," she repeated, fishing in her bag for a pad of paper and then finally grabbing Clark's grocery list off his fridge and scrawling on it. "So, why did you leave Krypton? Political asylum or something? Were Jonathon and Martha-"

"My parents are completely human," Clark said. "And Krypton exploded. Jor-el and Lara sent me away to save me."

"That's some sacrifice," Lois mused. "So, that meteor rock that was poisonous to you-"

"Kryptonite," Clark supplied, and Lois nodded, scribbling it on her pad. "Ah, Lois, there's only one 'n'."

Lois shot him a look. "Smallville, I put up with you editing my copy at work," she said, a warning tone in her voice, and Clark held his hands up in mock surrender.

"All right," he said, backing off. "What else did you want to know?"

"What made you decide to become Superman?" Lois asked, looking over at him.

"Lois, you were there," Clark reminded her. "Bomb on the roof, I landed in the middle of the street-"

"I know that," Lois sighed, "but I have to have something that sounds reasonable for the article. I'm not supposed to know you, remember?"

"Why did I become Superman?" Clark echoed, a thoughtful look on his face. "I wanted a way to help people, a way to make a difference. I wanted to use my powers for good."

"And what are those powers?" Lois asked, briskly, jotting his answer down.

"Super-strength, super-speed, enhanced hearing and vision, super-breath-"

"Super-breath?" Lois repeated, incredulously.

"I can blow on things really hard," Clark explained, trailing off when Lois started giggling at him. "Okay, yeah, it sounds kind of ridiculous," he admitted, sheepishly, after a minute.

"Kind of?" Lois echoed, still giggling. When she finally sobered, she asked, "Anything else? How'd you get off the roof?"

"I jumped," Clark told her. "I can jump really high."

"Wait a minute," Lois said, suspiciously. "Can you fly?"

"Not yet," Clark admitted, reluctantly. "Kara tried to teach me, but I wasn't a very good student."

"Do you own a pair of tights?" Lois asked, still with that suspicious tone.

"Tights," Clark repeated, flatly. "Uh, Lois-" but she wasn't listening to him any longer.

"Cross dressing pilot, my foot," she grumbled under her breath, and then she shook her head when Clark looked at her. "Never mind. You don't want to know."

"Any other questions?" Clark asked. "Or is this interview over?"

"I think I've got enough," Lois told him.

"Good," Clark said, in relief. "I want to take a shower and get into something that isn't burned onto my skin."

"You might want to stay away from the red-blue combo from now on," Lois advised, as he stood to go into his room. "Unless you'd like to blow your cover, that is."

"No red and blue," Clark said. "Got it. What are you doing?" he asked, when Lois made a beeline for the phone sitting on the counter.

"Calling your mom," Lois told him, smiling sweetly. At Clark's questioning look, she added, "Someone's got to make your costume, and I can't sew."


	7. Chapter 7

"You'd never know this place was bombed," Lois commented, stopping on the sidewalk to stare up at the globe of the Daily Planet. "It looks like a brand new building."

"Oliver is a millionaire," Clark pointed out, holding the door open for her. "And he owns the Daily Planet, now, so he's pouring a lot into fixing it up."

"And this speedy rebuilding owes absolutely nothing to Metropolis's newest superhero?" Lois asked, arching an eyebrow at Clark.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Clark said, but his innocent tone was ruined by the smile that kept twitching at his lips.

They couldn't keep up their conversation when they boarded the elevator packed tight with people on their way to work. Lois shot Clark a grin as the elevator started going up, instead of their customary trip down to the basement, and Clark grinned back.

An unseen benefit of their collaboration on the story about the bombings, plus Lois's interview with Superman, had been Tess's reaction. The day after the stories had run, Tess had called both of them into her office and promoted them out of the basement. Both he and Lois were now Staff Journalists for the Daily Planet. They'd even managed to keep their desks together, and keep working together on stories.

Clark had pointed out that the only reason either of them had been promoted was because Tess wanted to use them to find out more about Clark, but Lois wasn't worried. She'd countered by saying that the promotions were still valid, and they'd be fools to turn down any kind of forward career growth.

The elevator dinged at the bullpen, jolting Clark out of his thoughts, and he found himself being steered out of the elevator by Lois who had a bemused look on her face.

"Sorry," Clark apologized.

"Tess doesn't know about you," Lois told him, quietly, startling Clark with her almost uncanny ability to know what he was thinking about.

"How'd you know what I was worried about?" he asked.

"It's obvious," Lois told him. "You get those little frown lines around your eyes whenever you start thinking about people finding out your secret. And when you frown like that, your glasses ride up on your nose," she added, with a pointed look.

Clark quickly reached up and fiddled with the heavy-rimmed glasses Lois had insisted he start wearing, in addition to ditching his red and blue flannel. She'd claimed that people wouldn't think to see Superman hiding behind a big pair of glasses, and so far she was right, even if Clark still had his doubts.

"Guess I'm kind of transparent, huh?" Clark asked, ruefully.

"Just a bit," Lois replied. "And, besides, you know if Tess knew anything about you, she'd be trying to lock you up in some cell, not letting you run around town."

"You're right," Clark conceded, and Lois grinned.

"Smallville, I'm always right," she told him.

Then, she stopped suddenly, and Clark followed her gaze to see Cat Grant at her desk, typing something on her computer. A duffel bag sat on the floor near her chair.

"You look like you're going somewhere," Lois commented, idly, as she walked over to the other woman.

"Vacation," Cat told her, hitting 'print' with a smile and shutting her computer down. "Adam and I are going out to Los Angeles for a couple of weeks to visit his grandparents. It'll be good for him to see his family."

"How's Adam doing, anyway?" Clark asked, curiously.

"He's doing great," Cat said, happily. "The doctor says he's going to be back to normal in no time. And he's completely thrilled about that visit he got from Superman a couple of days ago. It's all he can talk about."

"Guess the Man of Steel's a big softie," Lois commented, shooting Clark a teasing grin. "Are you going to e-mail your column in, then?"

"Oh, no, they're bringing Linda Lake back from Gotham for a couple of days," Cat said, missing the annoyed looks that passed over the faces of every reporter within earshot.

"Well, have a good trip, Cat," Clark told her, and the young woman flashed him a brilliant smile.

"I can't believe you're leaving us," Lois bemoaned, and Cat laughed.

"It's only for two weeks," Cat reminded her, but Lois shook her head.

"You're leaving us at the mercy of Linda Lake for two weeks," she corrected.

"She's not that bad," Cat protested.

"Lake would sell out her own mother to get a headline," Lois said, flatly. "She'd try to get an angle on Mother Theresa."

"You'd better get going if you want to catch your plane," Clark interrupted, suddenly, looking down at his watch.

"Right, then, I'll see you all in two weeks!"

With that, Cat snatched her purse off of her desk and bolted out of the newsroom before anyone could find a reason for her to stay.

Chuckling, Clark sat back down at his desk and after a moment, Lois sat down at her own across from him.

"Writing another Superman story?" he asked when Lois started typing briskly on her keyboard.

"Contrary to popular belief, not everything I write is about Superman," Lois retorted, wryly.

"Just most of it," Clark teased.

Whatever reply Lois was about to make was cut off by Chloe's arrival in the newsroom. Lois waved her cousin over and the younger woman moved quickly through the room over to their desks. She had an unusually grim look on her face and a slim flash drive clutched in her hand.

"What's wrong?" Clark asked, as Chloe wordlessly let the flash drive fall onto his desk.

"That's everything Lana had in her files about you and Lois," Chloe told them as Clark picked the flash drive up and slowly turned it over in his fingers. "I thought you might want to look at it."

"No," Clark told her, quietly. "I don't need to look at any of it."

"You're not even curious?" Chloe asked, puzzled.

"No," Clark repeated, firmly. "I'm not going to give Lana that kind of importance in my life. She doesn't deserve it."

He held the flash drive out to Lois who shook her head, emphatically.

"I don't need any more reasons to hate Lana," she stated. "Just knowing what she did is bad enough."

"Go ahead and get rid of it," Clark told Chloe, handing the flash drive back.

Chloe nodded, and then a strange look passed over her face as she glanced over at the elevators.

"Speak of the devil," she muttered, and Lois and Clark both looked up at her words.

A dark scowl fell across Lois's face as she watched Lana Lang make her way across the newsroom over to where they were, but as she started to rise, Clark laid a restraining hand on her arm. Lois shot him an inscrutable look and settled her hip against the corner of his desk, a determined expression settling over her face. Clark couldn't decide if her demeanor was protective or possessive, and then as Lana drew closer, he came to the conclusion that it was a little bit of both.

"Lana," he greeted, coolly, as the other woman stopped in front of their desks.

"Clark," Lana replied, and there was a hint of tears in her eyes. "Clark, I found Lex."

"Good for you," Clark said, keeping his voice carefully neutral.

"I really think that this is something that we should talk about this in private," Lana said, looking significantly and Lois and Chloe.

"I don't," Clark replied, flatly. "If you have something to say to me, then say it. Otherwise, I have work to do."

"This is important," Lana stressed, angrily. "I really need to talk to you."

"So talk," Clark said, deliberately turning away from her and back to his computer screen.

He could practically feel Lana seething behind him at the implied insult, but he ignored her. Beside him, Lois was hiding her smirk behind her hand. Chloe dropped carelessly into her cousin's desk, and Clark could hear Lana's sharp intake of breath when she realized that she had been essentially dismissed and forgotten by the group.

"Lex deactivated the Prometheus suit!" she snapped, in a vain attempt to recapture their attention.

Clark ignored Lana's forceful declaration but beside him, Lois perked up in a way that could only mean trouble.

"You're powerless, then," she said, a speculative tone in her voice. "Just as ordinary and vulnerable as the rest of us."

"I had to take a plane back from Venezuela," Lana prattled on, blissfully unaware of Lois going very still where she sat, suddenly very focused on Lana. "I called you to come pick me up," she added, giving Clark a pointed look, "but you never answered your phone."

"I've been busy," Clark replied, tightly, wondering if it was worth the effort to try and contain Lois's explosion.

"With what?" Lana asked, snidely, her tone making it clear that there was nothing she considered more important than herself. "With her?"

She flicked her eyes over to Lois for a second and then back to Clark, dismissing the other woman in a heartbeat.

"Yes, actually," Clark said, watching as Lana's expression morphed into shock, before the smirk settled firmly back in place.

"Oh, please," she said, dismissively. "You could do so much better."

She shot Lois a triumphant sneer and Lois slowly stood up, her face fixed in emotionless mask. Then, almost too fast for even Clark to see, Lois's arm shot out, and then Lana staggered backward, blood gushing from between her finders where they were clasped in front of her face.

"You broke my nose!" she shrieked in outrage.

"After what you did to Clark," Lois growled, a dangerous tone in her voice, "you're lucky if that's all I break."

A hushed silence had fallen over the bullpen when Lana went down, and it was broken by Ron Troupe clearing his throat from behind them.

"Everything all right over there?" he asked.

"Everything's fine," Lois replied, her voice still tight with anger. "Lana was just leaving, weren't you?"

Lana gaped at Lois in amazement and not a little bit of fear, and then she whirled around to face Clark, a pleading expression on her face. She was clearly expecting him to come to her rescue as he had so often in the past. But Clark just shook his head, watching as her pleading expression crumpled into anger and disbelief.

"I think it's time you left, Lana," he said, quietly. "You've overstayed your welcome here."

"What about everything we meant to each other?" Lana asked him, as tears sprang to her eyes. "Everything we had together?"

"Everything we had was a lie," Clark interrupted, coldly, forcing himself to ignore the disturbing tugging sensation that he realized had to be her meteor power. "I'm not your puppet anymore, Lana. You don't control me."

Lana glared at him, her tears disappearing as fast as she'd conjured them, and a furious expression settled over her face.

"You'll regret this," she snarled, but then backed off quickly when Lois took a step toward her.

The two women were locked in a staring contest for several tense seconds and Lana was the first to break, whirling away and stalking out of the bullpen without a word. Lois smirked as she settled back down at her desk.

"I can't believe you hit Lana," Chloe said in an awed tone, breaking the silence that had fallen over them.

"You've known me how long, now?" Lois asked, wryly.

"Did you notice where Lana said she flew in from?" Clark asked, quietly, interrupting their banter.

"Lex isn't still going to be there," Lois said, catching onto his train of thought. "He's too smart for that."

"Oh, I know," Clark replied. "But, still, it's a place to start. Maybe Superman should check it out."

"You need to be careful," Chloe cautioned him. "If Lex knows your secret, he could be even more dangerous than ever."

"Excuse me," a voice broke in, and they looked up, startled, to see Linda Lake standing over them. "I'd like to talk to you, Clark."

"Seems to be my day for it," Clark muttered, trying not to bristle at the way Lake so cavalierly assumed familiarity.

"In private, if you don't mind," Lake continued.

"I'll be right back," Clark said to Lois, ignoring the way Lake smirked at him when she thought he couldn't see her.

He followed Lake into a nearby copy room, closing the door behind him and shutting out the noise of the bullpen.

"Let's cut to the chase," Lake said, as soon as the door had clicked shut. "I know who you are, Superman."

Clark felt his blood run cold at hr words, but he managed to keep the nervous quaver out of his voice as he said, "I don't know what you're talking about."

"You, Clark Kent, are Superman," Lake said, a predatory smile on her face. "An alien from the planet Krypton – excuse me, intergalactic traveler. That is what you like to be called, isn't it?"

His conversation with Chloe almost two years ago. How could he have been so stupid as to not check that there was no one else around?

"What do you want?" he asked Lake, who was watching him with a triumphant smirk on her face.

"You're going to help me with my column," Lake told him. "With you as my source, there's no limit to the dirt I can dig up."

"Your source," Clark repeated, incredulously. "You want me to spy on people for you."

"Exactly," Lake said.

"Forget it," Clark snapped, harshly. "I'm not going to help you expose people's darkest secrets."

"Then I'll expose yours," Lake countered. "Either way, I get the scoop of a century."

"Maybe everyone should know who I am," Clark bluffed.

It was the last thing he wanted, but he wasn't going to just let himself be blackmailed, either. Unfortunately, Lake seemed unfazed by his bravado.

"Are you sure about that?" she asked, mockingly. "Because, you know the funny thing about people? The only thing they love more than building up their heroes is tearing them down."

"Forget it," Clark snarled, again, turning around and heading for the door.

"They've got you on an awfully high pedestal, Superman," Lake called out from behind him. "How far do you think you'd fall?"

Clark stalked out of the copy room and across the bullpen to where Lois was sitting at her desk.

"Chloe had to take off," she began, but then she saw Clark's stormy expression and frowned. "What's wrong?" she demanded.

"We have a problem," Clark told her, dropping heavily down into his chair. "Linda Lake knows my secret and is threatening to expose it to the world."


End file.
